CIO Media Project Community

What exactly is "Phantom Power". No, it is not a lost episode of Star Wars!

Phantom Power is a way of providing electricity to professional mics over a XLR Cable. Some mics will not work without this extra "power". The JVC cameras, the Zoom H4N, and our audio mixers provide phantom power. You can't use a Pantom Powered Mic on most noncomerical cameras unless you have the proper connector AND a source of Phantom Power.

This little guy records great, movie style audio! It is a self contained audio recorder than can run for hours and hours on a single battery, and records in wav or mp4 format. The sound can be pulled off on the micro-SD card, or transfered to a computer through a USB cable.

This is the little brother of the Zoom H4N. The H4N is about 3 times more expensive, and weights about 6times more than the H1. The real difference between the two, besides the fancier mic, is the H4N has XLR inputs and Phantom Power, which makes it great for using with a boom mike.

The Zoom H1 is great to use with smaller cameras, such as the Kodak Zi9 and the Canon Vixia. (Also works great with my personal T2i DSLR - bought one for myself, too!) Used as a hand held mic in a nosy location it does a great job of noise rejection. Works pretty well for picking up a group of voices in a room, also. It does have a 1/8th mic input for a simple style mic, and also a headphone jack to monitor the sound. The Headphone jack can double as a line out - this might be useful on the Kodak Zi9 camera! Can also be used to record just audio from a meeting. If you need more professional mics or more channels - see the H4N.

Anyway, when you need really good sound in a light weight package - this works great!

We have two flexible small tripods - that can be the Kodak and Canon cameras. The "legs" of these tripods can be twisted around objects, such as door handles, chair backs or even the top of a regular tripod, so the camera can "cling" on, and be aimed at unusual angles. You can even use it as table-top tripods also! They're about 10" tall.

We also have a 75' snake - which allows a single (much thicker) cable to be attached between a sound board and a set. The "cable head" end of the snake - can run 10 different channels or mics. This is useful when there will be a number of guests on a set.

Video Releases are a very important part of life. They are essential for material CIO is going to use on the Internet. A Video Release both protects CIO but also protects - and respects - the rights of the people we are videotaping.

The release is basically a contract between CIO and the person being taped, giving us the range of uses we are allowed to use the video for. For example, In-House presentations, or Cable TV, or Youtube on the Internet. Both the director or videographer and the person being filmed will sign the contract.

If the subject is under 18, we must get the parents permission and signature too. There can be a number of reasons a minor shouldn't be videoed, and we must take special care to respect such situations.

An ongoing area of concern is our partners use of (and request for) material from our membership. Any such uses need to be scrutinized up front and the impact on CIO, our members and our communities need to be considered.